


To Want, To Wait

by starsareoverrated



Category: Vampire Academy Series - Richelle Mead
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Turned Into Vampire, F/M, Gen, Heavy Angst, Multi, Multiple Relationships, Romance, Time Travel, Vampire Bites, Vampire Sex, it may take time to come to that point, mature characters, sometimes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-13 16:06:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29156301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsareoverrated/pseuds/starsareoverrated
Summary: Set in Last Sacrifice and then goes back to the very beginning. This is an exploration of how relationships might have been differently developed between Rose and Adrian, Rose and Dimitri, and the dynamics of the friendship between Rose and Lissa and what exactly it means to have died and come back. Several other character studies and explorations come into play during the events of Last Sacrifice, leading to a second chance for Rose as she loses the people she loves and then gains them after several turbulent events, which definitely include Time Travel, but are not limited to this.
Relationships: Dimitri Belikov/Rose Hathaway, Lissa Dragomir/Christian Ozera, Rose Hathaway/Adrian Ivashkov
Comments: 16
Kudos: 23





	1. i get punched in the face, but this is nothing new

It has been weeks since I've realized what has been the biggest mistake of my life. I never expected my foolhardy intense ways to lead to this.

A desk job.

A fucking _desk job_.

I had trained so hard, pushed myself beyond the normal, gone to the literal corners of the world for the people I love and yet.

Yet. Here I am. Rosemarie Hathaway.

Top graduate of Saint Vladmir's wallowing in a fucking desk job. If that hadn't been enough, I had caused Eddie to receive a black mark on his previously pristine record so early in his career I didn't know if his ambitions would ever take off. While not put on a desk job, he had been relegated to continuous patrolling around the vast perimeter of the Royal Moroi Court, being let off for minimal hours and having been allocated the worst possible Guardian quarters. Right next to my own, of course.

Weeks ago, my life had come crashing down to what could only be described as my lowest point. It had been then that I had discovered that emotions are never a surety and can never be relied on to be constant. While this was in contrast to my own steadfast ways, I could not ignore the stark rejection Dimitri had issued me in that church. In hindsight, the man _had_ warned me multiple times to steer clear of him and even gone so far as to claim that he didn't want _me_ —exclusively—to be near him after he had been restored to dhampir state.

At first I had just thought he didn't want to appear less than put together in front of me and was somewhat embarrassed to be seen in such a vulnerable state. However, part of me was insanely confused as to why he would want _Lissa_ near him so constantly. He seemed to be joined to her—emotionally, mentally, I can't explain it—to the extent that seeing him and then her subconsciously moving in sync with one another left a roiling pit of dread in my stomach.

I would have battled a hundred Strigoi to have avoided the never ending spin my emotions took whenever I saw them. Christian was there too, and often. Apparently, Dimitri wasn't too bothered by his company.

The end result was this:

Eddie and I, on one of our rare simultaneous time-offs, sitting at a coffee house in the center of court. I was just taking dark coffee, without any condiments as the thought of taking anything that had chocolate or anything sweet sent me into a downward spiral where I would recall and then try not to recall all the times I had carelessly taken extra donuts from the school cafeteria. Now I could not afford anything more than the very bare essentials in terms of food and clothing. Same with Eddie.

"I am sorry," I stated artlessly, not meeting Eddie's eyes over the steam from both our cups.

"Don't be," he said immediately. "I chose to follow you, Rose."

"I can't help it," I said, sipping slowly. "I have ruined us both."

He was silent.

"I knew what going off to Vegas would mean, and I—I just..."

"Rosie," Eddie interrupted, using the childhood name I used to go by, "I told you. I followed you. I knew the consequences too, and I followed you anyway. You're my friend, Rosie. Rose." He shook his head, a fond smile pulling at his lips. "I know you'd do the same for me."

I laughed mirthlessly. 'You mean go off on a half-cocked mission to save someone who hates the sight of me?'

"No one who knows you can hate you," he said, voice tender, reminiscent of the time when I had been nine and nursing a skinned knee, bawling my eyes out as he washed it out. " _I_ don't hate you."

"I know," I said, ignoring the voice in my head that said he probably resented me at the very least even if he was polite enough to not say it to my face. "Thank you, Eddie."

He smiled. "Text me when you're free next."

"I will."

As if the latent guilt over Eddie's career was not enough, I had to contend with the very real fact that the next time Adrian had seen me after Dimitri's heart stopping pronouncement, he had immediately known that I hadn't been as over my former mentor as I had led on. At that time, I had been unable to give him a straight answer to what would become of us as a couple.

"I don't want to talk about it," I had said, numbed with the four words Dimitri had hurled at me not minutes ago. "I need to be alone."

Adrian's brow had furrowed, not in confusion but in a sort of acceptance that had my heart trembling even more. Fortunately, he hadn't said anything too damaging, but had decisively suggested that we take a break from each other. I had looked at him, dumbfounded, part of me wishing he would just hold me tightly. I had felt like every piece of me was splintering and scattering to far off places where they would ultimately be lost. The last harbor I had was Adrian Ivashkov. I could not force him to comfort me, however, over the pain of losing someone who was potentially—at one point in time—the love of my life. I wanted to tell Adrian I loved him too, so much so that it hurt me to stand there and wait pathetically for him to turn back. I had stayed quiet.

My voice had been stuck in my throat for days after that.

I had drifted along my tedious work like a machine—funny how I had once thought my mother to be one—with the result that all the filing work allocated to me was perfectly in order. I overdid it, honestly, but I didn't rightly have someone I could spend my time off with so I had stuck around after hours on almost all days. Rarely did I take breaks, and it was starting to show. I had lost weight dramatically and had seen how I seemed to have lost the natural sway in my step with the loss of some of my hard-earned curves. I was tired all the time. I could not sleep. My nights were spent tossing and turning on the lumpy bed in the spartan apartment I had been given. There was just the one tiny bedroom and an attached bathroom with a small shower stall and a not entirely clean almirah for all my stuff. It wasn't as if I had too many clothes so that wasn't a big deal. There were no windows and sometimes I could feel the walls closing in on me.

I bore the punishment, knowing I deserved it for putting myself so out there and risking everything for a _guy_.

Meanwhile Dimitri's last words continued to haunt me in my sleep, slipping in during daytime at random moments and ruining my momentum. Haunting me almost as much was Adrian's face as he had looked at me the last time I had seem him. I tried to keep both men out of my mind, which was a losing battle but one I tried to fight, nonetheless. I stayed out of Lissa's head, blocking quickly if I felt extra strong emotions coming in from the bond.

I could not bear to look at Dimitri's face through the bond or hear Lissa's thoughts about whether the momentary love Dimitri had felt for me—according to me as there were no other witnesses—was even real or just wishful thinking on my part. Worse was when she sometimes thought back to how natural Dimitri had seemed with Tasha Ozera last winter and how that factored into this whole fracas considering she had asked Dimitri to be her guardian at that time.

These thoughts were fleeting and Lissa curbed them immediately whenever they cropped up as she worried I would to be too offended if I picked up on them. I was by then too far removed from the situation to worry about the past. My heart had been broken and Dimitri had shaken what pride I had left and now I had no room to think about all those things. It seemed as if the two driving factors in my life—Lissa and Dimitri—had simultaneously given up on me and I had been the last one to know.

If I could describe what I felt on a daily basis in any sort of accurate way, I would call it betrayal. I somehow knew that that was a lie. I was so full of self doubt I wondered whether I had ever had worth enough to feel betrayal over the fact that two people—who I had loved more than my own self—had seemed not to have the same faith in me. I could forgive Lissa. She was too kind to feel anything malignant towards me even though her lack of faith in me debilitated me everyday.

Fortunately, my mundane job was enough to occupy me for most parts of my day.

Adrian did not spend any time with Lissa after our breakup. I was under no impression that it was _not_ a breakup because he did not exactly have a wholesome person waiting for him to come back to. I missed him everyday, dreamed about him even, but not once did he visit me in my dreams, nor did I see him around court. I was frightened that he had left altogether but comforted myself that he would at least let me know before doing anything too drastic. Perhaps the only thing that comforted me was that there was actually no gossip around court about him reverting back to his previous ways. Somehow, I believed that he wouldn't hurt me like that even though I probably deserved it for being the way I had been during our relationship. It did not change the fact that I was perpetually in fear of being hurt by any further news of _any_ kind.

The thing about living in fear is that even though you're prepared, even though you have steeled yourself against all eventualities, there remains the truth of the unexpected. I was getting by, truly. Slowly and slogging through the tiresome days when something happened which threw me in such a havoc that I halted in the middle of submitting a report. My fingers hovered over the keys as I was sucked into Lissa's brain for the first time in two months. Wary excitement cruised through her. She and Christian were standing at the airstrip, looking in anticipation at the people alighting off a small plane. Some Tarus cousins were first, looking willowy and chic in their tailored clothes as they bantered with each other.

It was the woman near the very end of the entourage that had my heart stopping. A flash of black hair and fashionable retro-style glasses covering a beautiful, somewhat marred face, Tasha Ozera stepped out of the throng of royals, a wide smile on her face as she embraced Christian and then Lissa.

So this was to be the culmination of my torture; watching Tasha fawn over Dimitri and hang off of him for as long as she was at court. Heart pounding, I extricated myself from Lissa's head and pressed the submit button on my computer. Again, I could feel the intense fear coursing through me as I had before meeting Dimitri in that church. I don't know why I felt so afraid. I just did.

I went to my apartment in a daze, locking the door behind me. I wouldn't be having dinner today. My stomach was all knotted up and I had to physically hold myself around my middle to stop myself from hurling. I tried to block Lissa for as long as I could but I knew eventually I would slip up. I wouldn't be able to stop myself from seeing what happened with Tasha but I knew nothing good would come from it. I needed a distraction and I needed it fast.

I flipped through the contacts on my phone and quickly realized that I was just stalling. There was no one I could call. Part of me wanted to know what went down when Dimitri saw Tasha. I had to know. I had to know just how badly I had fucked my life up. Deciding that the gym was as good a place as any for me to zone out, I grabbed my gym bag and exchanged my black heels for some sports shoes. I diligently filled a bottle of water for myself, remembering how I used to forget to bring one with me back at the academy. Nausea gripped me and I stopped. Tights. I needed tights. Even from a distance Tasha was enough to make me lose my composure. I painstakingly removed my shoes and dress trousers and shimmied into an old pair of tights. Everything I have seems to be from a different era when I had been a freer girl who could ask her friend for money without compunctions. It was different now and I had my worn tights to show for it. The idea of asking Lissa for something— _anything_ —made me so anxious I just resorted to ignoring all the thread bare t-shirts and fraying jeans in my wardrobe and forging ahead with my life.

The gym was fairly empty as all the dhampirs who weren't assigned charges or were off duty were yet to arrive. There was a certain hierarchy that worked here and dhampirs like me, who had been laid off, essentially got sidelined from using equipment for as long as we liked or even _when_ we liked. I had to make do with arriving early and seizing my spots before any of the others fought me for them. So far, I hadn't been in any major scuffles but I had seen one of the higher up guardians actually knock out a younger unpromised guy when the latter had refused to give up a particular set of weights. I had seen the whole thing out of the corner of my eye, refusing to make eye contact with anyone and attract more attention that I already did. I mean, I _knew_ I was a knockout—physically, I was practically most straight guys' walking wet dream—but it paid to keep my nose clean. While in contrast with my behavior back at the academy, it was my crutch now. I could not afford to put one toe out of the line and that included not starting fights in the gym.

I started with a fast pace on the treadmill, pushing myself till I felt sweat run down the back of my plain t-shirt. I continued, working through first wind and loosening the tension in my arms. I slipped into Lissa's mind but seeing as they were still catching up I zoned out. Lissa wanted to wait before telling Tasha any of the finer details of Dimitri's restoration, too anxious to take her straight away to him without any context. My heart gave a painful lurch. I wanted to shout at Lissa, but I was too breathless to do anything other than regulate my pace. I wanted Tasha to have no knowledge of what had gone down, I wanted her to be oblivious to my role, I wanted Dimitri to be kept from her. The same irrational fear took over me as I heard Lissa arguing with herself and eventually deciding that sooner was better than later.

She suggested the same to Tasha and I swear she lit up like a fucking Christmas tree at the idea. Jumping up from her seat in Lissa's lounge, she bounced on her toes excitedly.

"Well—come on! Let's go," she said, tossing back her curtain of jet black hair, "Dimka will be surprised."

Lissa felt warmth rush through her at Tasha's easy acceptance of Dimitri's admittedly whirlwind story. I slowed the treadmill down, working at a brisk jog, my heart beating way too fast for even the kind of sprint I had subjected my body to.

I put on my gloves quickly, the second hand pair already not in good shape but...what option did I have? I was so fixated on my lack of funds these days—and rightly so—that it would be a wonder if I would ever get the urge to splurge again. I put Lissa's mounting excitement and nervousness aside, channeling all my energy into pounding at the punching bag near the wall just opposite to the entries to the gym. My wrists were complaining but I could not make myself stop. The gym was filling up around me, mostly men, and I could feel some of them take an extra look at me though I always ignored them whenever approached.

I could not make any mistakes at this juncture in life.

They were almost at the modest quarters assigned to Dimitri (which were still better than my own) and I could taste actual blood in my mouth. I had bitten down on my tongue to keep from screaming in frustration at what was happening mere buildings away from me. I was powerless to stop what could be the absolute end of my emotional sanity.

I was so lost in Lissa's head that I ignored someone calling for me to give up the punching bag. Any other day, I would have. Or, if I had been wanting to go on, I would have given one soft look over my shoulder and requested an additional ten minutes. I never sparred with anyone. Something stopped me every time I sought out a sparring partner who could keep up with me. I had lost the only man who had taken enough of a bet on me to train me in his personal time and now I felt like no one could come close enough. I trained everyday, though, knowing that one day I would go back to active duty and then I would need my body more than ever.

Next thing I knew, I was being yanked back by my upper arm. A guardian, older than me, but not by much, was standing over me. Still, he wasn't as tall as Dimitri and was ultimately unsuccessful in what could only be described as him _trying_ to intimidate me.

"I told you to step aside," he glowered at me. "You don't get to ignore me."

"Dude—I wasn't paying attention, okay?" I said, wanting his hands off me. I was feeling insanely cranky as I got flashes from Lissa's mind as they stepped inside.

"You don't get to ignore me and get away with it," he said, brows lowered and voice threatening.

"I told you I didn't listen—you can have it—"

I couldn't have stopped myself this time. Through the bond, I saw Dimitri get up from a little desk in the corner. He looked at Lissa and Christian first.

"Princess?" he asked.

Then Tasha stepped out from behind them. 'Hello, Dimka.' She smiled.

I felt a shooting pain in the left side of my face and I dropped from the shock of it. The guy had punched me after getting no response. He probably had some leftover frustration that he needed to work out and I had provided him his first target of the night. The pain was nothing when I saw Dimitri's reaction. His entire demeanor relaxed, shoulders dropped and he actually pushed back a lock of his loose hair. The most heartwarming smile spread across his face as he looked at Tasha. I could feel my heart breaking all over again when he spoke.

'Tasha.' His voice was unlike anything I had heard from him after his restoration.

A funny feeling was beginning to take root inside me. It felt like every decision I had ever taken, every choice I had made that had led me to this point had been futile. I was useless. Powerless. I could hear some of the other guys pushing the big guy back but I couldn't get up. All the fight had drained from me. I wished the guy had hit me harder so I could have passed out at least. It would have been a mercy and saved me the pain at witnessing what happened next. I swear to God the earth tilted on its axis as I watched Dimitri take the last few steps towards Tasha and gather her in his arms, his face pressed to the top of her sleek head as he closed his eyes. It looked like years worth of tension had been taken from him as he clutched her to him. I could feel Lissa's slight alarm flowing through the bond as she tried to shut it and if I had been in any state of mind to help her block myself out, I would have.

_Powerless._

All my efforts were blown away like ashes in a cold wind, leaving me alone and weak. I was still face down on the mat and I could feel someone talking to me though my eyes were looking at something far away.

"—snap out of it, Rose!"

"—you need to get back to yourself..."

"You—you're going to get it. Just wait for it, you dumbfuck. Step away, goddammit!"

I was so far away. I felt like falling asleep and never waking up. Through some active part of my brain, I could tell it was Eddie that was carrying me outside and then up the stairs to our floor. The blurred ceiling of the hallway was now visible. My breath was coming in short pants. I closed my eyes.

"Don't call anyone," I told him, voice raspy. "Don't call anyone."


	2. revelations, and these i like

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who showed support for the previous chapter, and for your enjoyment, here is the second installment.

“I feel like shit,” I said as I opened my eyes to look at the edge of a low coffee table in my direct line of sight. And I completely fucking did, no exaggeration. There was a low pounding in my ears and I could feel that thrum of pain under my skin that I was so familiar with. Somewhere, there was a memory which caused me to shut my eyes again and purse my lips.

“I'm sure you do,” Eddie said, lying opposite me on a yoga mat, sweaty from exertion. “He got you pretty good—” He pointed at my face and I groaned, imagining some hideous bruise not unlike the one my mother had given me many months ago.

“I need to train,” I said decisively as I nodded to myself. “I've been going soft; letting some sub-standard failed guardian beat me up.”

“Yeah—about that,” he began slowly, raising his hands up as my eyebrows did a slow alarmed climb up my forehead. “It's nothing bad. I just think you should report him.”

“I don't think my pride can take that much,” I replied.

“So, what happened yesterday? You didn't even fight back.”

“Did you see the whole thing?” I groaned again, getting up from my ungainly sprawl on Eddie's couch.

“No—Ted told me later you kinda zoned out. He was about to interfere if Matthew gave you too much trouble but you just went down way too fast.” He shrugged, giving me a _the fuck, Hathaway?_ expression.

“I did, huh?” I was cringing so hard from my one-punch show last night I didn't think I could take another step inside that gym again. “Wait, Matthew? He's the guy who socked me?”

“Yeah, he's not assigned or anything but he's in line to guard some high-up Drozdov soon so he struts around like he owns the place.” I could tell Eddie was at least a bit wistful about allocation and I stopped myself before I actually brought up the subject in conversation.

“Pretty stupid of him,” I said. “Especially when he gets his ass handed to him tomorrow.”

It was the weekend so my stupid desk-job was no longer a distraction for me but on Sunday, every week, guardians and novices gathered to have a fight-club sort of thing where you could challenge anyone and the winner got a whole new gym bag filled with top quality gear. I had heard some Ozera lord was interested in watching so he provided the winners' spoils.

Eddie, in tune with my thinking, grinned. “I knew you wouldn't stay down for too long, Rosie. Come. Warm up and then we'll spar.”

I could spar with Eddie, I realized. I knew him so well that I wasn't afraid of a single thing with him and that was probably the reason I agreed.

I exhaled in relief. Apparently, I wouldn't be alone with my thoughts for too long. I couldn't think about Lissa or...just anyone, really. I had a sudden longing to talk to Adrian, to see his carefully styled hair (which mussed up in the most wonderful ways when I ran my fingers through it) and look at his green eyes, free of pain like they used to be. Pain that I had put there and that I regretted every single day I spent away from him. I pushed down the ache in my chest and nodded at Eddie, thankful that no one could actually think what _my_ fucked up brain thought.

Every time I put Eddie on his back (not too hard; we trained with lower intensity to prevent injury and _another_ setback to either of us, but it was a good way to keep up muscle memory), I pictured Tasha's stupid elfin-fucking face beneath my fists or Dimitri's impassive one, trying to get him to react to me. After the first time I did that, I realized with a muted sort of horror that I could not quite remember the way he used to smile, or where the lines of his expressions fell or even the exact cut of his beautiful face. It was a sobering thought, that while I might still love him, there was something undeniably _other_ in him now that not only rejected me, but rejected me cruelly.

I stayed with Eddie for hours, stopping our workout for a quick lunch at a nearby eatery not too exorbitantly priced but where we didn't visit too frequently either. In our sweat soaked clothes, if we had gone anywhere near the Moroi residences or their shopping complexes I knew we wouldn't even have been given entry. Funny, the thing that prevented us from looking refined was exactly that, _keeping_ us from looking refined.

All through the passage of the day, I was keenly aware of the eye-opening fact that Eddie, and not Lissa, was my closest friend. After the earlier, startling blow of my amnesia regarding Dimitri's appearance, this new realization sneaked up on me and grabbed me by the throat. Lissa was my best friend because I understood her in ways no one else could. I knew what made her tick and what made her light up and I knew the pulse in her throat and the sting of her fangs, but the thing was— _she_ simply didn't know me as well.

Even after living together for two years with no one else to confide in, I had reigned myself in so much to protect her—not just physically; no; my stupid fucking self wanted to protect her emotionally too and hey, nothing wrong with that except for the funny question of _where does that leave me_? And _where has it left me_?—that I had repressed my own wishes and hopes and all the little things I wanted everyday that I didn't have and she did. It was not jealousy, but it was something quite similar, just without the malice. I knew that just as she viewed me as hers, I was similarly used to thinking of her as solely mine—with the recent exception of Christian. All this mutual possessiveness was not enough, however, for her to know just how badly Tasha Ozera unsettled me, how my entire being felt excluded when she spoke—whether intentional on her part or not.

Lissa was my best friend, who I would die for, but Eddie was my _greatest_ friend who would do anything to help me. Not to say that Lissa hadn't performed a literal miracle to restore Dimitri (who had been the self-proclaimed love of my life, but apparently I was not of his) and another, older, unwitting one to bring me back from the land of shadows, but she was separate from me in a way Eddie wasn't.

“You've been so out of sorts lately,” Eddie commented late in the evening (or morning, however you saw it) when we were lazing in front of his TV, watching cartoons and laughing senselessly (on both our parts) and hollowly (on mine). “So lost, Rosie.”

“I know,” I mumbled, hitting him with my sock-clad foot. “Everything sucks.”

He laughed and then sobered when he saw my despondent face. “You've been living like you're going to die, you know? I didn't know what it was before but I can see it now. You've been chasing adrenaline rushes ever since...Spokane.”

It was true. I guess I had never been able to put the horror of those harrowing few days and the sight of Mason's broken neck behind me, and it had pushed me do more and more daring things. In hindsight, I had been seeking adrenaline rushes ever since Lissa magicked me back to life, literally _spirit_ ing me away from the land of the dead. I don't remember much of those few moments when I _must_ have been dead but I do recall a dawning paralysis and a subsequent few days of bone-chilling coldness as I had laid in the hospital bed, recovering, just next room from Lissa who had been hysterical and honestly, a bit mad (understandably).

“I do what I have to feel alive,” I told Eddie, the knowledge new in my shadow-kissed brain. “And, besides, do you honestly think I would be able to live without stirring up trouble?”

“No,” he shook his head fondly, “even when it gets you in trouble, no.”

I looked away. “This time I went a bit too far, though.” There was a burning in my eyes. “I cost you your allocation.”

He shoved my foot down from the low table. “Its fine, Rosie, I told you. I'd follow you anywhere.”

I peered back at him, uncharacteristically shy. “I'd follow you, too, you know? You're my greatest friend, Eddie and I won't get us in trouble again, I swear.”

“I'll hold you to that, Hathaway.”

Later, I fell asleep leaning against Eddie, quiet familiarity and childhood ghosts of all of us (kind-of?) abandoned novices huddling together in the common room and listening to old Guardian stories and bragging to each other in the brightness of the human day about the badasses we would one day become, running through my tired mind.

Time passes.

But it does not always pass.

Sometimes, time stands still.

Late morning on Sunday as I made my lunch run alone, I saw from a distance Adrian who was loitering around the jogging trails under the street lights. I paused where I was, unsure of why he was there. There was the blood rushing in my veins and a deep seated fear of _are you going to leave me too, Adrian_? and an adage of _I've missed you so much_ on the tip of my tongue. He hadn't seen me yet and I was tempted to hide myself in preparation for future pain.

Today, I was brave. Today, I couldn't afford to be fearful because there was a man waiting to feel my fists against his face and if I lost my nerve now I wouldn't be able to pick it up later.

I walked toward Adrian who appeared to be lost in thought. When I was mere steps away from him, I called out his name without my voice wavering. Bold, like I was always supposed to be.

“Little dhampir,” he said, turning to face me and the nickname flooded me with warmth. It was instantly replaced with fury as I saw his swollen lips and the blood under his nose.

“Adrian,” I said as I rushed toward him, “what the hell happened to you? Who did this?”

I was all fluttering unsure hands as I gazed at his, frankly, beaten-down image, trying to hold his face but unsure if I'd be welcome to. He didn't meet my eyes and this was bad, this was bad, because he was Adrian fucking Ivashkov and he was supposed to be unbothered and cocky and ready with retorts (I expected him to say some guy beat him up for trying to flirt with some girl) and he wasn't supposed to be, of all things, vulnerable. It seemed to be a weekend of revelations.

“Wouldn't you like to know?” he batted at me, attempting a smirk but failing because his beautiful mouth was an unfamiliar shape and a painful pout and I was so angry I could beat up whoever did this to him. Because, god fucking dammit, I loved him too much. I told him as much and he grimaced, peculiar and _vulnerable_ , and my heart clenched.

“Tell me,” I growl at him, “tell me who did this—I will beat him up. Or her.”

“I wouldn't want to get you in trouble,” he muttered, fishing out his cigarettes and they were out of his hands before he could fish out his cursed lighter too. He looked at me, eyebrow raised— _just like Dimitri_ —and I raised mine back (both of them).

“You're hurt,” I said slowly, chucking the cigarette at a bin. Which it missed. Stupid cigarette. “And I know _for a fact_ that you can't heal yourself, so you've gotta go easy till the swelling goes down.”

“I thought you wouldn't care,” he said, voice low and fluttery, “but you do—I can see it. I thought you'd be angry but then I thought _I_ should be angry except I am not, you know?”

“I know,” I replied, “and of course I care, Adrian, but you still haven't told me the name of my target.”

He shook his head. “He's royal—you'd be in so much trouble.” His eyes looked strangely shiny and there was a wooziness to him that suggested he was actually disturbingly sober and the next words were out of my mouth before I could stop them.

“You wanna have lunch with me?”

He blinked. “I...”

“Or—do you have someplace to be? I won't be offended, except—“

“I don't,” he interrupted. “I came to see you and I uhh...I wanna hang out. If you want, that is.”

“I want,” I said quickly, “but let's get you cleaned up, first.” I turned to go but stopped, fighting the red in my cheeks. Hopefully the night wouldn't expose me too much. “My apartment's that way.” I pointed.

“Okay,” he nodded, entirely unbothered, except for the slight widening of his eyes.

We walked in silence for a while, not too close but close enough that our hands definitely brushed against each other's. Once or twice.

“Are you off duty today?” he asked suddenly, throwing me off balance and I opened my mouth to refute the statement except— _there_ is that humiliation beating through my body, remembering Hans Croft's clear words to me. _Unfit for active duty_ , he had said, _unreliable_ and then, _a danger to yourself and your charge_.

“I got taken off active duty,” I confessed, avoiding his eyes as he whipped his head to look at me. “Me and Eddie, both of us.”

He clearly didn't know what to say now and I didn't know either but still our conversation wasn't awkward and we just carried on in silence till we reached the stairwell to the second floor. He grabbed my hand, tugging me back.

“I didn't know,” he said, “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah—it was my fault, so...”

A beat of silence. Another. In the dead of the human night, there was supposed to be peace, but here, in the midst of nocturnal live vampires, there is hustle and bustle and everything but that.

“You were going after what you believed in,” he said at last, and I could sense he was still upset about me ditching him to run off to Vegas after Strigoi Dimitri—or rather, Robert Doru.

“Doesn't make it right,” I said lightly, hoping he would just drop the topic and then I thought of his defensiveness and my own right now and sighed. We were both avoiding topics, definitely, but I hoped we could discuss them some other time.

“So—this is where you live?” he asked, as we climbed up the narrow stairs. The paint on several places was peeling and there was a general air of neglect about the whole area. I could see how someone like Adrian would have never been to such a place, but it made me smile bitterly.

“This is where they put me, yes.”

“It sucks,” he deadpanned and I snorted.

“Yeah.” I led him to my door, pointing out Eddie's across the hall. “Yeah, it totally does,” I said as I pushed open my door to reveal my bedroom, which was practically the whole shindig anyway.

“This is it.” We stood in the doorway for a while before I said, “Go sit on the bed. I'll bring something to clean up the blood.”

He didn't say anything but quietly went and sat on my bed, which I could already tell was too short for his not inconsiderable height—and _why_ was I even thinking about if he would or would not fit into my bed? I brought out some antiseptic and cotton, sitting beside Adrian on the bed, and faced him. He followed my lead and turned so both of ours one leg was touching the others as I leaned toward him to look at his puffy lip.

“It looks painful,” I murmured as I swiped gently across the length of his upper lip, the neat bow in the middle obscured due to injury.

He hummed but stayed silent, his eyes focused on mine. The striking color of his eyes shone in the general dim light and I shuddered as I took in a quiet breath, filling my senses up with his unique cologne (of course, it wasn't _completely_ unique but still—there was that something there that pulled at me). I wiped the last of the caked blood and saw the purplish bruising settling in. Whoever had hit him had done a thorough job of it and I didn't like it one bit. My mind flashed to my own bruise just beneath the curtain of my hair on the left side of my face and I smiled.

“What's funny?” Adrian asked as he continued to look at me with such intensity I shivered under his attention. We had been this close, and closer, plenty of times before, but this was different. This, was something that made me feel naked and I suspected he felt much the same with the way he kept looking over everything—my hair, to my exposed collarbone, the arch of my eyebrows, dipping many times to bore into my eyes and to my hand, still hovering above his face.

“We match.” I flipped my hair over my shoulder, tilting my face to show him. He hissed, looking between my eyes and the bruise and then taking my hand.

“What happened? Aren't there rules against this?” He was referring, of course, to that one time my mother had hit me across the face during sparring and how the rules clearly stated no hits above the neck. I was surprised he remembered.

“There are,” I confirmed, “which is why I am going to get my own back tonight. Will you come?”

He looked interested and vaguely irritated. “What's the plan?”

“Well, seeing as tonight is fight club, I am going to challenge the one that gave me this,” I smiled, settled and confident in my ability to win against that jerk, Matthew.

“Fight club? Like the movie?” He looked rather alarmed.

“Kind of—it's just a bunch of us fighting but it's a chance for me reclaim some respect.”

“How did it happen?”

“I'll tell you after. If I think about it now, I'll be too upset to fight and we can't have that.”

“No, we can't,” he agreed. “Just how late are we talking?”

“Like it phases you,” I bantered. “Just be there.”

“I am counting on you taking me there, actually, or are you busy this evening?”

I looked at him slyly. “Are you asking me...”

“Yes,” he said, too quickly, “God, yes, I've mi—”

“I've missed you so much,” I said with him, to him, wrapping my arms around his neck, pressing myself close. Apart from Eddie, this was the only proper contact I'd had with anyone for so long that I wished he would just keep me close to his chest, _just_ like this.


	3. love beats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys like the Adrian/Rose bits.

I prepared for my fight like I prepared for any sparring session—with jumping the rope for a while; Adrian sat on my bed and gazed at me, unusually silent but characteristically attentive. I avoided his eyes—I needed to avoid his eyes—because this was about my honor, about my standing as a guardian who made some stupid decisions but who was every bit the personification of my profession when it came to ability and dedication. And while I didn't have the same prejudiced understanding of non-guardian dhampir women, something about the dismissal of the guys in the gym, the way that Matthew guy had spoken to me, rankled in my brain until it had completely inflamed my senses.

I _wanted_ to beat him up, and not just for that punch but to actually rattle his attitude and knock him down a few pegs. It was also very much possible that I was suffering from the negative effects of Spirit and had been for a while.

“My aura's pretty dark, isn't it?” I asked casually as I stretched my legs after warming up.

“Yeah,” he said, lounging back against the wall. “Do you feel particularly murderous or are you just that angry all the time?”

I shrugged. “I guess its been too long since I've let out some of the darkness. It was a long time ago when I was this angry,” I said as I thought about the night I'd lost my virginity; still my solitary sexual experience. It'd been epic, I guess, if not for the immediate aftermath. Still, I didn't regret it and, as far I could tell, it'd been pretty phenomenal for Dimitri too. But sex often was, or so I had heard.

Adrian was looking at me with something akin to curiosity in his leaf green eyes. I went through some stretches as I thought about how at ease I was with him, more than I had been _before_ —before Dimitri had—well, you got the idea. Usually when I worked out at the gym, I was sure to limit my exercises to less... _provocative..._ moves. I mean, _I_ didn't think they were such a big deal but I knew how guys thought and I just didn't want those gym buffs to think about me too much. Here, in the privacy of my room, I hadn't expected to be uninhibited enough around Adrian to go down on my exercise mat and move around like I used to with Dimitri (who had done a GREAT job at ignoring me back when he mentored me and look how I'd idolized him like my own personal god and look where it got me). I smiled a confused smile, bemused at myself and looking at Adrian like it wasn't pretty sexy what we were doing here, without saying much and just talking with the way our bodies moved and shifted at the distance we were from each other.

“What?” he asked, rearranging himself so his face was closer to me as his legs dangled off the other end, his shoes partially off. I hadn't told him to get comfortable and he... _hadn't_. I didn't know if I was disappointed or actually impressed by how much he was reigning himself in, but I liked how he kept himself involved with each move I did. He kept asking me about what I was doing, kept moving around on my damn bed—it was even more uncomfortable than my bed back at the academy, and that was saying something—as I shifted in parallel on the floor. He kept his eyes affixed on mine, never straying to places he would usually ogle _before_. I don't know what changed, or if he was in a particularly somber mood or whatnot but I liked it and didn't, at the same time.

“I'm just a bit surprised,” I told him, lowering my eyes to my feet and folding myself in half to stretch my hamstrings, “I didn't know I would—I just...”

I stopped. Looked at him.

“Its nice to be hanging out with you,” I said at last, unable to voice how much I liked him in that moment.

“I'll take that half-truth,” he said, amused, “because I happen to like it.”

I laughed. “I don't know how—”

“Its fine, little dhampir,” he interrupted. “God—I thought you wouldn't want to see me after—well, everything, and here we are and I am just so happy, Rose, so happy.”

I moved to put my arms around him and he pulled me close again, sweaty skin and disheveled hair, pressing his lips to my forehead. “I've been so stupid, Adrian.”

He breathed, his firm chest moving against my own pressing into him, and it is nice; this feeling, and new too because I have never hugged a boy like this before—close and intimate and our breaths mingling in the air around us and no one to threaten us and no adrenaline pushing us together. I like him, I know, and so much too. And I've been blind to him. I know now that I've never actually given him a fair chance and it hurts to realize that now it isn't possible to know what we could've been together. I don't know how much he is getting from my aura—seeing as he wasn't completely sober, but that's beside the point—and I wish he saw how much I wanted to _know_ him in this moment.

“Everyone's a fool in love,” he said, voice low and velvety, “and it's okay—you're very beautiful when you're in love, Rose. All red...and pink and glowy, all those colors and to see them around you—beautiful.”

Rambling. He was rambling. He was suffering too from the side effects of Spirit. I felt for him; while I could take Lissa's burden, he didn't have the luxury of a bondmate to take the darkness from him and someday it would get too much and then—and then...no. I didn't want to think about that. Still, I did have a little something that could make him feel better in the short term. I pulled back from him, his arms falling to his sides as he sat back. I dived down and fished out my little box of keepsakes from under the bed, rummaging until I found Oksana's spirit ring. I had worn it regularly for some weeks after Lissa had studied it to learn how to make more like it (where that idea had gone, I didn't know; Lissa, as far as I knew, never created Spirit infused jewelry) and then I had kept it aside one day after a shower, hoping to use it on a particularly bad day.

“Here,” I handed the silver ring to him, “It's Spirit infused and it heals. Try it.”

He took it, holding it up to his eyes to see something in it that I couldn't. “Did Lissa make this?”

“No. It was Oksana. From Russia, remember?”

“The one who—”

“Helped to get your ex institutionalized? Yeah.” I scowled, remembering Avery Lazar and her crazy Spirit goals. It had grated on me so much when she had gone after not only Lissa, but Adrian too in her little scheme of Spirit supremacy.

“She was never my girlfriend,” he scoffed.

“C'mon—don't lie to me. I saw you around her. You _liked_ her.”

“So? I like Lissa too and she's not my girlfriend.”

“But—”

“You know you're just adorable when you're jealous. Puffed up like a kitten. Cute like one too.”

I screwed up my face to tell him off, but he just pulled me to him again. “Its always been you, Rose, even when you weren't there,” he said, open, as always, with his emotions. The difference being that now I actually believed him when he said he liked me more than just as a casual fling.

“I don't like girls going after you,” I confessed, shame-faced to admit I felt some modicum of possessive feelings where he was concerned even without committing myself equally to him.

His face softened, putting one long-fingered hand on my unbruised cheek. “Believe me—I know.”

“I do.” I sneaked a peek at his shiny eyes. “Believe you, that is.”

“That's good to know.”

“What about me?”

He raised an eyebrow—darned muscle control—and I shrugged. “Do you believe me?” Bold of me to ask, considering I had deceived him quite thoroughly when it came to my feelings for Dimitri, but I didn't care about that now. This felt crucial, like balancing on the edge of a knife you wouldn't mind cutting yourself with.

“Absolutely,” he said, and I could see he meant it.

“Its more than I deserve,” I fiddled with the hem of my top and then placed my hand over his own on my cheek, the warmth of his skin already a layer of want on my skin. “But I want to deserve it, someday.”

“You have it,” he said lightly, “now—tell me about this guy we're beating up.”

I laughed. He was way too good at plucking out moments for changing subjects. “ _We_ , are not beating up anybody. _I_ am. And _he's_ a low-level guardian who happened to catch me off guard and disrespects people in general _and_ he makes my skin crawl. _Not_ in a good way.”

“He sounds awful.” He smirked. “And I accept that half-truth too because I am not going to push you now.”

I grimaced. “I'll tell you about it later, when I've got his blood on my fist.”

“Violent girl. You make the most gruesome things sound sexy.”

“Says the vampire.”

“Touché, little dhampir, touché.” He slipped on Oksana's ring on his little finger, narrowing his eyes before lighting up. “This is incredible. I find healing people so difficult even when I am touching them and she just charmed this ring to heal in her place? That's some magic.”

“Does it help you?”

“Yeah. I felt like my head—”

“—is a lot lighter? Me too! I didn't know I had a constant fucking headache till I wore it for the first time.”

He looked a bit dazed, honestly. I got up and slunk down to my mat again. I had to finish my routine and then have a spot of lunch before going into today's match.

After a rushed session during which I alternated watching Adrian relax against my bed—he looked nothing like the cocky, cigarette-rolling rich boy who had accosted me in a resort hallway once—and making frequent trips to the washroom, because goddammit am I not allowed to feel nervous?—I was supremely afraid of one thing. And that was being pulled into Lissa's head, a place I was fervently avoiding with all the training I had acquired in Spirit darkness avoidance.

Hours later, when the sun would definitely have been coming up, I roused Adrian from where he was laying slumped over, asleep.

“Its time to go beat that guy up,” I reminded him as I pick out some fresh workout gear that looked halfway pretty and not too beat-up.

“Oh—”

“Here,” I said, handing him a platter of sandwiches I had brought back with me from the diner I had gone to earlier. I had left without Adrian because he had seemed way too comfortable and also, I wasn't sure I wanted to be out and about with a Moroi as high up in the pecking order as he was in front of fellow dhampirs who were quick to judge and quick to sympathize, the latter being way worse than the former.

“I must have been more tired than I realized.” He sat up, the edge of his collared shirt having ridden up in his sleep now showing his—frankly—very attractive body. I looked away, shaking my head at myself. There had been a hint of abs—surprising, but not unpleasantly so—and I was struck with the fact that he might be one of the few Moroi who actually stepped inside a gym, or, at the very least, worked out enough to make his pecs pop.

“I didn't know you were _that_ fit.” I raised my brows at his exposed skin, pale and unblemished and entirely too beckoning.

He smirked—smiled—or did something to either effect. “I started working out when I saw how hard you trained, back at the academy.”

“Really? And here I was thinking about all the different ways you intoxicated yourself from lack of anything better to do when I or Lissa or your cousins were in class.” I pulled my clothes hamper out from below my bed; honestly the only space I had in this stupid room was below that ratty bed. “Consider me impressed.”

“I did it partly for that very reason, little dhampir.” He stood and pulled me to him, making me drop a few clothes. I was a bit embarrassed; sweat was not something I trusted to endear me to him though I remembered him mentioning once that he found it sexy. “And, well, I found it...empowering, I guess.”

“Both excellent reasons,” I breathed. “I need to get ready. But—you _are_ coming with me, right?”

He nodded once, placing his head to the side of mine. I could smell his cologne, saturated close to his skin and I inhaled, using it to calm myself.

“Tomorrow? What about tomorrow?”

“What about it?”

“Do you have somewhere to be?” I asked, not too brave in this aspect. I didn't know what we had between us, not officially, but I knew I wanted it. Liked it. Tasted it like it was something tangible in the air between us. I had thought—and said to someone once—that there would be no one after Dimitri, and I had meant it. There would be no one quite like Dimitri for me, ever again. But what I knew now was that just because I had loved him—still did—with everything I had and that he had returned those emotions to the best of his ability, my own capacity to love someone _else_ was not impaired, whatsoever. It was more broad, somehow, expanded in its power and I knew I loved Adrian too. Had loved him, a bit, before I had left to to go hunt Strigoi Dimitri and our relationship had only deepened after I had come back. I could see how he might have humored Avery Lazar and might even have fancied himself the whore people thought him to be, but I knew him. I _knew_ him. And I wanted to know him more.

“I am unemployed,” he pointed out, “and without any pressing engagements. I am free to be with you for as long as you are free too. I'd probably come hang out with you when you work, just to be by you _and_ for the fuck of it and I don't know why I am so free around you, Rose, but I don't want you to _not_ know how I feel every damn minute I am with you.”

I teared up, I will admit. “Its my sparkling personality,” I mumbled even as my nose tingled with the onset of tears.

“Oh, Rose,” he whispered, “ _never doubt I love_.”

My heart soared and some of the bruised parts of me, the broken parts of me, flared back to life, rejoining in a new configuration.

“ _Me too_ ,” I cried, “and I want you to be with me. God, I like you like I haven't liked anyone ever—we need to _stop_ this cry fest. I feel like kicking somebody. _God_ , why are emotions so _hard_?”

He snickered. “Allergic to emotions: noted.”

I shoved him lightly, bending down to pick a clean black tee. “Just when they're expressed like its a mushy fucking flick,” I grimaced. “I am going to go get changed.”

“Dress to kill, little dhampir,” he called out as I slipped into my bathroom.

“ _Did_ you dress to kill?” he asked as I came out, surveying my black tee—which looked particularly good with my set of breasts—and black joggers tied tightly at my waist, and proclaimed, “yes—she wins, or will win, by murder of opponent.”

“Nothing quite so drastic, but close enough,” I said, packing my phone, a bottle of water, tying my feet into good, reliable shoes and my hair into a high ponytail with not one, but two hair ties because my hair just sagged down otherwise after an hour or so.

“What if somebody grabbed your hair in a fight?” he wondered out loud, batting at the thick locks and wrapping them around his fist, leaving length to avoid tautness.

“I'd break the hand that did it, after I got free, which hurts but you don't notice it till after,” I explained.

“It'd be a crime to part with that head of glory,” he smiled, eyes dark as he looked down at me from above my shoulder and in the mirror's reflection. My stomach twisted, not uncomfortably as I leaned into him.

“It'll just grow out again,” I said lamely.

He swallowed. “That it will.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Let's go,” I snapped, wary of the emotional softness in our conversation and liking it a bit too much.

“Yeah,” he agreed. I tugged him into a quick hug and then led him out by the hand into the hallway. I locked the door, flashing a smile at him, all bashful teen and bubble gum head, as we walked down.


End file.
